Shape-sorting toys have been classic toddler favorites for many years and are still one of the most popular types of toys available today. Toddlers learn about shapes and develop manual dexterity by dropping geometric blocks through matching apertures.
This activity is beneficial to toddlers by helping them to understand spatial concepts, to develop problem-solving skills, to practice hand-eye coordination, and to interact with parents, siblings and friends.
The presentation of shape-sorting toys is a mature and well-known art as evidenced by U.S. Pat. No. 741,903 to Gates describing an educational toy or game apparatus, U.S. Pat. No. 2,623,303 to Mindel describing an educational toy, U.S. Pat. No. 4,008,526 to Swett et. al. describing openable curvilinear openings of different geometrical shapes and U.S. Pat. No. 5,139,453 to Aiken et. al. describing a shape sorting educational toy.
Shape-sorting toys of the prior art typically use a hollow receptacle with the outer surface having a plurality of apertures of different shapes and a plurality of blocks configured to allow for insertion through a single aperture. The known devices are constructed such that they allow correctly-matched blocks to drop through the apertures into a hollow receptacle.
Dropping blocks into a receptacle provides entertainment value and develops the cause and effect skills of a child. However, to provide the dropping effect, the toys described in the prior art are bulky and have not been designed to be collapsible and portable for travel or for convenient storage.